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Personal Submission to 
Jesus Christ 

Olin Alfred Curtis 



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Personal Submission 
to Jesus Christ 

ITS SUPREME IMPORTANCE IN THE 
CHRISTIAN LIFE AND THEOLOGY 



MATRICULATION DAY ADDRESS 
DELIVERED BY 

OLIN ALFRED CURTIS 

M 
PROFESSOR IN DREW THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 

September 28, 1910 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



BV+501 



Copyright, 1910, by - 
EATON & MAINS. 



CCI.A280291 



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•fcentB Sneon 3Sutt3, 2>,2>. t X3L2>* 

f>resft>ent of 2>vcw Ubeologtcal Seminary 

11 What figure more immovably august 
Than that grave strength so patient and so pure, 
Calm in good fortune, when it wavered, sure, 
That mind serene, impenetrably just, 
Modeled on classic lines so simple they endure? " 



Preface 

THE publication of this address, in 
this form, is in response to urgent 
requests from preachers who wish 
to enlarge the circuit of the message. 
Some changes have been made; but the 
address is printed substantially as it was 
delivered in the Seminary chapel. To 
satisfy the Drew students, the " class 
greetings" have been kept intact. 



Personal Submission to Jesus 
Christ 

I HAVE set myself a double task. 
First, I want to meet the demand 
of the occasion and say something 
which will help every student here to be- 
gin his seminary year in the right way. 
Then, in connection with this instant task, 
I want to give clear expression to a mes- 
sage which for months has been taking 
shape — a message which is, I think, the 
most vital and searching utterance of my 
entire theological life. My subject is : "The 
Supreme Importance in the Christian 
Life and Theology of Personal Sub- 
mission to Jesus Christ." 



Before taking up the body of the dis- 
cussion there are two preparatory matters 
which require our attention. You may 
have remarked that, in wording the sub- 
ject, I say "the Christian life.** I say 
this with sharp intention, for I have in 
mind a thing more definite than can be 
denoted by the expression "religious life." 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

In his London Letters, George W. Smalley, 
the American journalist, declares that 
"orthodoxy has little to say to a pro- 
foundly religious soul" (ii, 106). By the 
term "orthodoxy" Mr. Smalley probably 
means that evangelical belief which insists 
upon the necessity of conversion. If this 
is his meaning, he has unwittingly almost 
told the truth. The more religious — 
merely religious — a man is, the less open 
he is likely to be to the moral severity 
of the full evangelical demand. Indeed, 
I am ready to affirm that the appeal of 
the New Testament is not to the religious 
nature as a thing in itself, but rather to 
the whole man without a part missing. 
When the religious nature is overem- 
phasized the soul becomes abnormal and 
is sure to prefer an aesthetic evasion of 
the Gospel, or even to wander in a 
transcendent mist of Pantheism. The very 
fog has its fascination for the man who 
has no serious wish to go home! 

What I am considering, then, is the 
Christian life; and by Christian life you 
are not to understand a fragmentary re- 
ligious bearing, but a definite experience 
> of total manhood, an experience which 
begins with that personal peace which 
Saint Paul calls "peace with God through 

8 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5. 1). 
Every Christian man has this experience; 
but this does not mean that all Christian 
men have precisely the same psychological 
history; nor does it mean that the Chris- 
tian experience is, in every concrete in- 
stance, the same thing as to moral practice; 
nor does it mean that a man becomes a 
Christian only in a volcanic crisis which 
ever stands out in memory like Mount 
iEtna after an eruption. But it does mean 
that all Christian men have been alike 
reconstructed within; have now the same 
kind of motive-plan; have the same prac- 
tical set of redemptional equivalents — the ^ 
same hostility toward sin, the same despair 
of any manner of self-rescue, the same 
personal venture of faith, the same con- 
stant clinging to Jesus Christ for salvation, 
the same ambition to serve Christ in 
loyalty and self-sacrifice. 



The next thing requiring our attention 
is the expression "personal submission/' 
There exists something which often is 
regarded as submission to Christ, and yet 
in it there is involved no personal quality. 
Really the bearing amounts to nothing 
more than mechanical acquiescence y for the 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

yielding individual merely takes our Lord 
for granted as a conventional point of 
supremacy in the religious life. In home, 
church, country, a man finds a certain 
estimate of Jesus acknowledged, and this 
estimate is accepted as impersonally as a 
dolphin accepts the ocean. In truth, it 
is possible to accept the entire Christian 
creed by this mechanical acquiescence. In 
one of his most significant statements 
Leslie Stephen says: 1 "When I ceased to 
accept the teachings of my youth it was 
not so much a process of giving up beliefs 
as of discovering that I had never really 
believed." 

At this place, though, I need to be 
extremely careful and not allow an absorb- 
ing interest in my message to overwhelm 
an important fact. It is not true that an 
initial mechanical religious attitude has no 
worth of any sort. It is wise to give 
serious heed to the opinions of parents, 
teachers, friends, and all worthy men. In 
any community the consensus of opinion 
is a sane check upon reckless originality. 
What I insist upon, however, is that an 
initial mechanical attitude, even at its 



1 See Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen, by F. W. 
Maitland (Duckworth & Co., London, 1506), page 
133. Also see Social Rights and Duties, i, 12. 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

best, is but a providential advantage in 
pastoral opportunity; what I insist upon 
is that the initial attitude must be in- 
dorsed and vitalized by personal intention; 
what I insist upon is that neither in the 
home, nor in the Sunday school, nor in 
the church, nor in any possible situation, 
can mechanical acquiescence furnish the 
Gospel condition of actual entrance into a 
Christian experience; and without Christian 
experience a normal Christian life is im- 
possible. No, it is not enough to take 
Jesus Christ for granted; it is not enough 
to live "in the suburbs of Christianity." 
We must live purposely in Christ; we 
must by full, self-conscious intention lay 
hold of our entire manhood and give it, 
for life, death, and eternity, in utter sub- 
mission to Jesus Christ. 



Coming to the body of our discussion, 
we need to consider one thing which is 
a commonplace of preaching, namely, the 
heart. This word "heart" is one of those 
physical words which are capable of large 
rhetorical traffic. It may stand for man's 
emotional nature, or for his whole range 
of sensibility. Among the poets, indeed, 
the usage may be most liberal and the 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

heart may mean as much as personality 
itself. For example, note Longfellow's 
touching song: 

"Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest; 
Home-keeping hearts are happiest, 
For those that wander they know not where 
Are full of trouble and full of care ; 
To stay at home is best." 

In the New Testament, especially in 
such crucial texts as are found in the 
Epistle to the Romans, the term heart 
(zapSia) has, I think, a practical rather 
than a psychological significance. With 
Saint Paul there is a responsible center 
of manhood where all decisive things 
are done. Given in terms of Mental 
Science this practical notion would, per- 
haps, amount to this: "The heart is man's 
inherent capacity for free, personal deci- 
sion. By the heart, therefore, individual 
thoughts and feelings are converted into 
intention." But Mental Science aside, 
there can be no question as to the apostle's 
emphasis. He regards the heart as so 
fundamental that salvation itself is appro- 
priated by means of heart-belief. "With 
the heart man believeth unto righteousness" 
(Rom. io. 10). Such being the scriptural 
emphasis, it is easy to see that personal 
submission to our Lord must begin with 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

the yielding of the heart. No one can be 
normally converted without this central, 
primary submission. To Jesus Christ 
there must be, first of all, what we may 
term basal self- commitment. 

And the sooner we drop the belief that 
a fortunate environment, or a progressive 
evolution, or a systematic moral and re- 
ligious training, can, in wise emphasis, take 
the place of simple heart-submission to 
Jesus Christ, the better it will be for all 
the Christian work of the church. Even 
in the case of children, our teaching as 
to the guiltlessness of infants, true as that 
teaching certainly is, should never be 
allowed to change our point of stress. 
With much care to avoid artificial, hot- 
house forcing, 1 we should insist that every 
child under our influence needs (to the 
extent of personal understanding and 
ability) to give his heart in actual sub- 
mission to his Saviour. 



Another important feature in the Chris- 
tian life is the use of conscience, 2 and 

1 A lamentable instance of this hothouse forcing 
may be seen in the life of Edmund Gosse as por- 
trayed in Father and Son. 

2 The term "conscience" is used here most com- 
prehensively, covering the entire moral life in man. 

13 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

at this point also there must be personal 
submission to Jesus Christ. Of course, 
the conscience is involved in every part of 
the process by which a person becomes 
a Christian; but, contrary to some theories, 
it is quite possible that in every one of 
these parts the submission is a submission 
of the man to conscience and not a sub- 
mission of conscience to Jesus Christ. 
Probably some of you are thinking that 
this distinction between a submission to 
conscience and a submission of conscience 
is a mere finical nicety in the use of 
words. There was a time when I thought 
so myself; but humiliating experience has 
taught me that a superficially modified 
morality may be allowed to linger in the 
Christian life. Men can be very conscien- 
tious, infinitesimally conscientious, having 
their consciences "so white that the small- 
est drop of milk would have stained them," 
and yet not have, or be open to, the 
ethical ideals of Jesus Christ. 

Reading again, after many years, the 
Confessions of Saint Augustine, I discover 
the first traces of the ecclesiastical con- 
science. But you may not understand 
what I mean by "the ecclesiastical con- 
science. " It is a conscience which has 
been manipulated in the interest of churchly 

14 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

concern. With such a conscience a man 
does not go straight to Christ for a moral 
principle, but ever acts for the benefit 
of his church whether or no. The Bishop 
of Hippo had, I say, traces of this ecclesias- 
tical indirection, and yet he was extremely 
conscientious. In one place (ii, 29) he 
castigates himself, because, in his boy- 
hood, led on by companions in a prank, 
he had stolen some pears which really 
he did not want. "Fair/ 1 he says, "were 
those pears, but not them did my wretched 
soul desire, for I had store of better, 
and those I gathered only that I might 
steal." 

This leads me to a much larger in- 
stance. When one studies the Roman 
Catholic Church, as that church now 
exists in Italy, he first notices the fact 
of incongruity. Rome is out of all con- 
gruous relation to modern Italian life. 
When the student seeks an explanation of 
this incongruity he soon perceives that . 
the Roman Church has lost the sense of 
Christian perspective. Almost never is the 
Roman emphasis entirely right. Its man- 
ner of emphasis (whether dealing with 
doctrine or with history) reminds us of 
those crude pictures made by children 
where a weasel and an elephant are alike 
15 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

in size and dramatic regard. If the stu- 
dent further presses his inquiry he will 
need to ask, "Why this lack and loss of 
Christian perspective ?" After long con- 
sideration my own an. ver is this: "For 
centuries the Roman Catholic Church has 
considered itself an end, a finality. In 
this spirit it has deliberately cultivated 
the ecclesiastical conscience. The moral 
judgment (that most sensitive organ) has 
been trained to respond to every touch of 
ecclesiastical ambition; and thus the con- 
science has never been given in full sub- 
mission to Jesus Christ. Therefore Rome 
has come into our complex modern world 
with no ethical ideals big enough and 
penetrating enough and altruistic enough 
to separate unerringly the things of Christ 
from the things of men. 

All this I have said, not so much to 
criticise the Roman Catholic Church as 
to flash a searchlight upon our own Prot- 
estant Church. Protestantism is, it seems 
to me, being severely tested by the pecu- 
liar social and economic situation of our age. 

"Here's an age 
That makes its own vocation ! here we have 

stepped 
Across the bounds of time! here's naught to 

see, 

- 






TO JESUS CHRIST 

But just the rich man and just Lazarus, 
And both in torments, with a mediate gulph, 
Though not a hint of Abraham's bosom/ ' 

But the main thing is not the peculiar 
difficulty of our social and economic prob- 
lem, the main thing is our moral attitude 
in approaching the problem. Will we also 
care for only our ecclesiastical ambitions 
and institutional prosperities ? God forbid! 
Let us dare to go straight to Jesus Christ 
and submit our entire moral life to him! 
Then shall we come back to our modern 
task with our Lord's moral ideals, and then 
his Holy Spirit will be ready to teach us how 
to apply those ideals sanely and efficiently. 



It is not enough, though, to submit 
heart and conscience to Jesus Christ; the 
mind must be submitted to him as well. 
Possible it is, very possible, to belong to 
Christ in a general way — in such a way 
that the Master's command, once clearly 
understood, would be instantly obeyed; it 
is even possible to receive all our moral 
ideals from Christ and yet not to receive, 
or be ready to receive, our Christian 
doctrines from him. Under certain abnor- 
mal conditions, there may be created a 
whole theology, having neither substance, 

17 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

nor form, nor tone, determined by Jesus 
Christ; and yet the theologian may be a 
loyal Christian. In the church there is 
not, we venture to believe, any large 
amount of that bold, aggressive Rational- 
ism which assumes the sufficiency of 
human reason. The fact is that, while 
men have made remarkable progress in 
many things which contribute to civili- 
zation, the human reason has made a 
lamentable showing in fundamental think- 
ing. Man is great in finding facts, almost 
as great in the practical utilization of facts, 
but pathetically weak in comprehensive in- 
ference. Scientific and philosophical and 
theological theories appear and flourish 
and die until we open a new book with 
dubious curiosity. We are reminded of 
a remark made on a certain occasion by 
M. de Blowitz: "My memory resembles 
those old Norman churches surrounded by 
a cemetery into which one enters with- 
out knowing exactly whether the ceremony 
one goes to witness is to be a baptism, 
a marriage, or a funeral." 

But, if in the Christian Church there 
is no large amount of bold Rationalism, 
there is much of that subtle, unconscious 
trend which Professor Frank, of Erlangen, 
was wont to term " semirationalism" — a 
18 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

trend so sincerely expressed in a certain 
theological work 1 of very uncommon ability 
that there comes to mind what Thomas 
Carlyle once said concerning a most 
amiable Broad-Churchman: "There goes 
our friend, the Dean, boring holes in the 
bottom of the good ship, Church of Eng- 
land — and doesnt know it!" 

Neither the honesty, nor the essential 
Christianity, of these "semirationalists" do 
I question. They have given themselves 
to Christ — with the one exception of the 
mind. It has not occurred to them, prob- 
ably, that all their thinking belongs to 
Christ; that they have no Christian right 
to any opinion which is intentionally indi- 
vidualistic; neither to any opinion formed 
primarily to appease the Zeitgeist. Chris- 
tian Apology is one thing, apology for 
Christianity is quite another thing. 

Quickly it will be interposed that such 
a conception of Christian thinking im- 
plies bias. I admit the interposition. But, 
in this regard, a Christian thinker is no 
atom different from any other thinker. 
Every man who thinks at all thinks with 
some bias, either in basal presupposition, 
or in selection of data for emphasis, 

1 The reference is to Professor Foster's book, The 
Finality of the Christian Religion. 

19 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

or in interpretation of fact. No man 
can deal with the entire universe with 
absolute independence and equity. "The 
free thinker" is a phrase and not a reality. 

Take, for example, Professor Huxley; 
and I select him because he was con- 
sidered exceptionally free and fair and 
fearless. In him was (one of his scientific 
friends said it) "none of your shuffling 
and equivocating and application of top- 
color." Did you ever read Huxley's 
Biography side by side with his essays 
and lectures ? And did you remark, in 
every letter, in every discussion, bearing 
upon a moral or religious question, his 
fixed peculiarity of approach? Huxley's 
approach is as full of bias as ever was 
one of Bishop Butler's sermons. In the 
scientist, it is scientific bias surely, but it 
is bias all the same. He has gathered a 
large number of facts in the material 
world and induced a rigid reign of mech- 
anism. The first scientific bias! Then, 
he comes to the vast and mysterious realm 
of spirit and quietly assumes that his 
old mechanical induction must hold good 
here. The second scientific bias! 

The question, then, is not, "Will we 
have bias, or not have bias ?" The ques- 
tion is, "Where will we get our bias ?" 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

And I am contending that the reasonable 
thing for a man who has found peace 
with God only through Jesus Christ is 
to get his primary bias only from Jesus 
Christ. To our Lord we are, as Christian 
men, to yield our minds in submission. 

But, do not fail to understand me at 
this point. Never are we to throw aside 
the reason; never are we to shun reality; 
never are we to tamper with a fact; but 
we are to grant a dominating place to our ) 
experience in Christ; we are to be pre- 
disposed toward such interpretations of 
facts as tend to exalt our Saviour; we 
are deliberately to intend to discover a 
universe made significant by his life and 
work; we are inwardly to crave such 
theories in Science and Philosophy, and 
such doctrines in Theology, as fit into 
the redemptional majesty of Jesus Christ. 

In such a submission of the mind to 
our Lord there is, I hardly need to say, an 
act of personal courage. Every profound 
moral conviction, and especially every 
Christian conviction, is gained only by 
volitional daring in the name of the highest 
life of the soul. We are not dealing 
with coercive truth, but with truth in- 
finitely beyond the range of mathematical 
demonstration. Saint Paul well understood 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

the matter and made appeal to this heroic 
element in the Christian person, as when 
he said to the Corinthians: "But if there 
is no resurrection of the dead, neither 
hath Christ been raised: and if Christ hath 
not been raised, then is our preaching vain, 
your faith also is vain 9 (i Cor. 15. 13, 14). 
The early church responded to this ap- 
peal bravely; let us dare to respond in 
the same way — let us say to every fas- 
cinating phase of Naturalism: "Whatever 
comes or whatever goes, we belong to 
Jesus Christ and yield to him our minds 
in absolute submission." 



This submission of the mind to Christ 
has an important bearing upon our con- 
ception of the Christian and theological 
significance of the Bible. In theological 
discussion there is now a view of the 
Scriptures which is rapidly gaining ground. 
The most forcible exposition of this view 
is to be found in Professor William Newton 
Clarke's The Use of the Scriptures in 
Theology. In this book (made out of 
lectures which were delivered before the 
Divinity School of Yale University) Dr. 
Clarke has, in a clear way, shown what 
I will call the present line of theological 
22 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

cleavage. Briefly let us analyze the por- 
tion of his discussion which belongs to 
our purpose: 

First. Our Bible is not an "equal Bible." 
In it there are inferior parts and superior 
parts. Thus, distinctions must be made. 
"What distinctions to make, and how to 
make them, is our problem" (page 20). 

Second. In solving our problem, we 
need, first of all, to find a principle of dis- 
crimination. "The principle is, that the 
Christian element in the Scriptures is the 
indispensable and formative element in 
Christian theology, and is the only ele- 
ment in the Scriptures which Christian 
theology is either required or permitted 
to receive as contributing to its substance" 
(page 50). 

Third. We now ask: "What is this 
Christian element ?" Dr. Clarke's answer 
is that it consists of two things, the heart 
and the accordance (pages 56 and 77). 
The heart of Christianity is the supreme 
work of Jesus in revealing God — a revela- 
tion, not of words, not of thoughts even, 
but a body of living truth — "a body of 
spiritual reality put into life" (page 60). 
The accordance comprises all those things 
which agree with the heart, or those 
things which accord with Christ's revela- 
23 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

tion of God. In Dr. Clarke's exact words: 
"That is Christian which enters into or 
accords with the view of Divine realities 
which Jesus Christ revealed" (page 56). 

Fourth. Next we ask: "How can we 
find any feature of this accordance ?" 
The answer is : "The way to know a Chris- 
tian thought is the same as the way to 
perceive the blue in the sky, look at it 
and discern the quality" (page 66). 

Fifth. But not every man can perceive 
the blue in the sky. Some men are blind 
or color-blind. Just so, not every man 
can discern Christian quality. There is 
required such spiritual equipment as ren- 
ders possible "spiritual vision." Dr. Clarke 
says plainly: "If we are to identify the 
Christian element, we need to have in 
exercise the full outfit of our spiritual 
powers." And he further says that "the 
Christian element appeals to the Christian 
element" (page 67). 

This view, as given by Professor Clarke, 
contains several important truths; but these 
truths are so stated, or are so related to 
other matters, or are so left without im- 
portant protective truths, as to result in 
an utterance exceedingly inadequate. I 
will, with as much economy as possible, 
make several critical observations: 
24 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

First, there is in this view no adequate 
conception of the work of our Lord. 
Certainly he did give to us a revelation 
of God, and certainly this revelation is 
the supreme revelation; butfthe Christian 
emphasis is not upon Christ's revelation, 
***but upon his deed of atonement. The 
main work of Jesus Christ was to die upon 
the cross and thus make it possible for 
the God of holy love to forgive a sinner. 
Men are not saved by a revelation, they 
are saved by a sacrificial death which 
involves a revelation.. 

Second, there is in this view no adequate 
conception of the place and authority and 
■finality of the Bible in Christian life and 
theology. Here again Dr. Clarke's em- 
phasis is wrong. True enough is it that 
we have not "an equal Bible." But the 
Christian emphasis is not upon this point, 
the Christian emphasis is upon the redemp- 
tional finality in authority of the Bible as 
an organic total. The Bible has come 
into existence through a process of redemp- 
tion. There is a historic movement, but 
this movement is under the guidance of 
the Holy Ghost unto the end of human 
salvation in Christ. We are not dealing 
with a haphazard clutter of unrelated 
religious writings — these writings cohere 
25 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

under a providential and supernatural 
plan and so form an organism expressing 
God's whole aim and method and realiza- 
tion of redemption. Thus, the Bible is 
our ultimate authority on redemption. In 
the Bible we find the entire history of 
redemption together with the doctrines of 
redemption given in their primary and 
practical shape. But no man can see 
all this redemptional content in all its 
meaning without complete submission to 
Jesus Christ — submission of heart, con- 
science, and mind. With such submission, 
in normal Christian relations, the Bible 
is a veritable organism, self-protecting and 
self-explaining. 

Third, there is in this view no adequate 
conception of the supreme importance of 
the submission of the person, especially 
of the mind, to our Saviour. Here, for 
the sake of emphasis, I will cross lines 
with what I have already said. Rightly 
Dr. Clarke holds that the Bible can be 
fully understood only by "spiritual vision." 
But he does not make it plain that the 
vision required can be obtained only 
through Christian experience. An uncon- 
verted man, even though as spiritual and 
sincere as was Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
cannot (save in a fragmentary way) under- 

26 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

stand the Bible; cannot understand it at 
all as the supreme Book of Redemption. 
Nor is this enough to say; for Christian 
vision, or, as I would say, Christian con- 
sciousness, barely begins with conversion 
— it reaches full, normal penetration and 
comprehension only when, beyond heart 
and conscience, the mind itself is given 
in absolute personal submission to our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

Fourth, there is in this view, as far 
as I can see, not only no adequate pro- 
tection, but even no protection whatever, 
from the egoistic peril which belongs to 
every phase of individualism. Even when 
a man's mind has been submitted to 
Christ, the man must not be left in isola- 
tion. Every human mind is one-sided, 
and some human minds naturally tend 
toward arbitrary vagary. The most sanely 
strong and independent mind of the last 
century was, I would say, that of Prince 
Bismarck; and yet when you read his 
Reflections and Reminiscences, you per- 
ceive a certain freakiness (let us dare to 
call it) at times in his mental process. 
And an interesting psychological feature of 
the case is that Bismarck himself, in his 
highest moods, seemed to be aware of his 
own unreliability. The fact is that every- 
27 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

where in life safety lies in allowing the 
utmost individual freedom, but allowing 
this freedom only under a powerful social 
check. Make one man as strong as that 
man can be, and then limit his importance 
by relating him to ten thousand men. 
Christianity provides just this democratic 
check. Christian submission is personal; 
but, to be fully Christian, the personal 
submission must be social. We are to 
submit to our Saviour in mighty compan- 
ionship. For a tentative time I may 
have a doctrine of my own, a biblical 
interpretation of my own; but I cannot 
forever keep this interpretation, unless it 
satisfies the whole democracy in Christ. 

Here is the pith of the entire matter 
as I would now state it: 

A Bible organically authoritative on 
Redemption, its aim, history, and doc- 
trine, is to be interpreted, out from the 
center, which is the atoning death of 
Christ, by men who have personally sub- 
mitted to their Lord in heart, conscience, 
and mind; all these men, socially united 
in one everlasting democracy, living for 
Christian service, nourished by the 
means of grace, and guided by their 
Saviour through the Holy Ghost. 

2% 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

Before dropping our discussion, I should 
answer the question: "What conception of 
Christ's person is normally involved in 
personal submission to him ?" I once 
believed that no man could become a 
Christian without such a faith in the 
Saviour as amounted, practically, to a 
confession of his deity; but I dare not be 
so dogmatically sweeping now. As my 
relations with men have widened, excep- 
tional cases have been discovered. Appar- 
ently there are men whose life has been 
transformed by their trust in Jesus, and 
yet they have no clear view of our Lord's 
person, and are not even interested in 
the Christological question. They are 
Christian agnostics. They accept Christ 
by some dim impulsion, perhaps, just as 
an eagle prefers the upper spaces of the 
crags; or as I have seen a pine tree bend 
far over and out of its usual line of growth 
in order that it might catch the fire of 
the sun. 

But, while I make this admission, I 
must still hold that this instinctive bearing 
toward Christ is not the same thing, or 
equivalent to the same thing, as a bear- 
ing of personal submission. An instinct, 
however valuable, is mechanical, and no 
mechanical relation to Christ results, or 
29 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

can result, in a Christian experience of 
real vitality. At the very best, the result 
would be a psychological eccentricity, and 
the church, especially a church with the 
history of our Methodist Church, has no 
right to be content with any experience 
less than that of New Testament clearness 
and fullness. Under Methodist preaching 
anyway men should be convicted of sin 
and converted so they know it, and have 
a resultant peace with God as sharply 
defined as a palm tree standing in a desert. 
All this, however, is saying hardly more 
than I have said in another part of this 
address. What I wish especially to urge 
upon you is this: Whatever may be possi- 
ble, in psychological eccentricity, as to the 
heart, or as to heart and conscience to- 
gether, no man can submit personally his 
mind to Christy unless he is filled with a 
conviction of our Lord's deity. Therefore, 
Christology is the practically determining 
feature of Theology, inasmuch as Chris- 
tology is the determining feature in the 
mental attitude of the theologian himself. 
If you see, if you fully grasp this point, 
you can understand why no sane com- 
promise is possible in Christology. In 
certain quarters much is said about "the 
spirit of Christian toleration." There is 

30 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

such a spirit, and a noble spirit it is, 
but surely it cannot mean that we are 
placidly to allow depreciating views of our 
Lord's person to steal into the church 
and stay there. Such extreme toleration 
is perilous — I say more — such toleration is 
impossible to any man who has really seen 
the glory of our Saviour the uncreated Son of 
God become man only for our salvation. 



Of all my experiences in Switzerland, 
there is one which peculiarly stands out 
in memory — my first sight of Mont Blanc. 
For days I had been waiting in Geneva 
for the sky to clear. Now and then, as a 
cloud lifted, a towering peak would appear 
in the right direction, and I would eagerly 
ask: "There! is that Mont Blanc ?" At 
this the mother of the pension, who had 
lived in Geneva for many years, would 
become plainly disturbed. I can see her 
now, as she queerly opens her eyes, and 
says with abundant gesture: "Mont Blanc! 
That leetle thing Mont Blanc! Sir, it is 
impos.r^ble !" 

At last the woman's time of vindication 
came. It was a Sunday, near sunset. 
The sky had become clear, save for a 
few of those most beautiful of all clouds, 

31 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

the cumuli — soft, white, fleecy, with edges 
abruptly turned up out of the vast azure; 
and every cloud piled high. A quick rap 
at my door, then a nervously restrained 
voice: "Come queek, sir, Mont Blanc is 
here!" In a moment I was with her — 
and saw — the mighty mass — rising above 
the fields of snow and shattered ice — rising 
above the lower "Dome" — rising above the 
polar forest of aiguilles — until it "seemed 
to occupy the zenith." And the swift 
and bewildering changes, transformations! 
Now it looked like a solid white continent 
flung vertically into heaven; now it turned 
into a huge speculum, catching the sun 
and flashing out wide-spreading flame; 
now came the Alpine glow, gradually 
fading into darkness, then breaking into 
the "afterglow" of lambent rose, the color 
we sometimes get from burning driftwood; 
now, at last, the mountain became a lofty 
mystery, distant, ethereal, even transcend- 
ent in the dim and delicate twilight, as 
if it had been quietly translated ! 

Not a word was spoken, but, under the 
spell of the scene, I could understand the 
woman, could understand why she could 
not tolerate the belief that anv other 
peak was Mont Blanc. 



32 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

Brethren of the Seminary: In behalf of 
your president and professors I give you 
welcome. Let us, first of all, rejoice at 
the prospect of another year of work 
together. In this rejoicing over the chance 
for work, and work in Christian fellow- 
ship, I surely have a peculiar right to 
lead the chorus. Better a year of such 
work, I say, than long ages of vacation ! 

/ greet the members of the 'Junior Class. 
May you all find here a place which shall 
be to you a home and yet more than a 
home — a place where doubts shall die — a 
place where convictions shall be born — 
a place where all the things of Christ 
shall take on freshness and beauty and 
size and power. 

/ greet the members of the Middle Class. 
In these coming months may you get a 
new perspective, until the great Christian 
realities stand out commandingly like a 
coast-line of cliffs. May you this year 
achieve a composite Christian manhood, 
combining in one wholesome total Christian 
experience, Christian service, and Chris- 
tian belief. 

/ greet the members of the Senior Class. 
May this year be the climax of all your 
student-life. May you gain a profounder 
realization of the dignity of your voca- 

33 



PERSONAL SUBMISSION 

tion, and the value of your long preparation 
to preach the Gospel to men. May you 
come to understand men better and to 
love them more, entering fully into the 
spirit and activity of the Christian democ- 
racy where all men are alike significant 
in Jesus Christ. 

/ greet you all as ministers of our Lord. 
As your brother rather than as your 
teacher, I now beseech you to give your- 
selves to our Saviour in complete per- 
sonal submission — heart and conscience 
and mind. Make Christ the source and 
test of all your inner experience, all your 
moral conduct, and all your opinions. 
And, then, be brave. Charge your whole 
being with personal confidence in Jesus 
Christ. Look steadfastly toward our Lord's 
final triumph, and be unafraid. Get the 
optimism which comes from looking "not 
at the things which are seen, but at the 
things which are not seen." Antonio 
Fogazzaro has said (and it is like a bugle- 
call in a discouraged camp), "I bend not, 
nor do I complain; a soldier at his post, 
I await the dawn and God." Young 
men, every man of you can strike this 
martial note and complete it with the 
greater utterance of the apostle Paul: "I 
bend not, nor do I complain; a soldier 

34 



TO JESUS CHRIST 

at his post, I await the dawn of Christ's 
day, and the crown of righteousness, which 
the Lord, the righteous "Judge, shall give 
to me at that day; and not to me only, 
but also to all them that have loved his 
appearing" 



35 



JAN 23 1911 



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